The Auction Trilogy

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Would you like me to help you carry in your belongings?"

Had I possessed an iota of common sense, I would have told Adam 'no,' but it'd been so long since a man had offered to help me do anything that my mouth giddily blurted 'yes' before my brain had a chance to say, 'What are you stupid? Do you -really- want your new employer to know you just showed up for your job interview toting the contents of your former apartment?'

I sputtered. And then I bit my tongue. After saying 'yes' like an eager little fan-poodle, what was I supposed to do? Give a long-winded explanation?

Adam strolled out to my car with his too-long legs, giving an uninhibited view of the way his firm backside filled out his jeans. Warmth crawled up into my cheeks as I realized, in my foolish desire to get my stuff out of Gregory's lair, I'd inadvertently buried my suitcase under every. Single. Thing. I owned.

Adam watched me rummage through the mess with amusement.

"You sure brought a lot of stuff."

If there'd been a hole for me to crawl into, I swear to God I'd have dove right into it.

"I needed to move my things out of my former apartment," I said. "They wanted $300 per month to rent a storage bay, so I took it with me."

"Why didn't you store it with your family?"

My mouth tightened into a grim line. It would be a cold day in hell before I ever visited her again. I told Adam the smallest lie I possibly could.

"My father now lives in Spain."

Adam's blue-green eyes crinkled into a thoughtful expression, but thankfully he decided not to pry. What could I say? That I'd come out into the back o' Bourke to run away from my own bloody life?

I handed him the green garbage bag which contained my pillow as I heaved a box of textbooks out of my back seat. It teetered precariously on one knee as I reached for my suitcase, but no such luck. The sucker was buried under an avalanche of crap.

"Do you intend to keep that stuff in your car for the entire summer?"

Adam's lip twitched as he forced himself not to laugh. I glanced over to the enormous white monitor-barn which dwarfed the house, perhaps eight or nine times its size.

"I hoped to find a storage unit in town," I said. "But you have such a big barn … would you mind if I kept it there?"

Adam's façade cracked as he broke out into a grin. It was a brilliant smile, broad, with white teeth, the kind you see on the men who grace the cover of GQ Australia. He placed the pillow on the roof of the car and reached to relieve me of my burden.

"Here. Let me get that."

"I can do it."

"I insist."

He lifted the hefty box right out of my hands. Was that a yes? Yes, you can store your junk in my barn? Rather than ask, I pulled out the next box to get at my suitcase, the one marked 'Second Semester - Dual Major.' The darned crate weighed at least twenty-five kilos.

"What's in here, anyways?" Adam shifted his box.

"My old textbooks. They cost so much I couldn't bear to throw them out."

"What kind of textbooks?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but decided it would open the door to even more questions. When I'd started my teaching degree, I'd intended to get qualified to teach secondary school right up through the 12th year, but then Gregory convinced me that time would be better spent helping him graduate at the top of his class. I'd only gotten qualified to teach primary school up until the 7th grade.

Talk about being 'too stupid to live!' Gee, Mr. Bristow. I'm so gullible, I financially supported the first bludger to ever pay attention to me, and now I want you to trust me to babysit your daughter…

"They're just, you know, books," I mumbled, hoping to change the subject. "General education requirements. Nothing exciting."

Adam reached over my head and grabbed the pillow off the roof of my car. I was acutely aware of how tall he was as the scent of musk and a light touch of after-shave filled my senses with an odd sense of longing. From the way Professor Dingle had described him as 'an old-fashioned dinosaur', I'd expected Pippa's father to be a much older man.

"Follow me," he said, oblivious to the fact I found him attractive. "You can keep these in the tack room."

"Uhm, if you don't mind," I snatched the bag and tossed it back onto the roof of the car, "I'd like to bring my pillow into the house."

Adam frowned.

"We have everything you need."

"I like to sleep with my own pillow and blanket."

Adam shrugged. "Have it your way." He led me across the clearing towards the barn. "It's full of field mice, so you don't want to keep your things in here long-term. But it should tide you over until Pippa returns to school."

I glanced over to where Pippa played with her dog, laughing as she sent the shepherd after a stick beyond the edge of the courtyard. People joke that everything in Australia is out to kill you, but between the brown snakes and funnel spiders, it's not that far from the truth.

"Rosie?" he asked. "Is everything okay?"

He studied me intensely, a hawk scrutinizing a dove. I tilted my head in the direction where Pippa had gone.

"How far is she allowed to roam?"

"Anywhere within the immediate courtyard," he said. "My mother fenced it in to keep the cattle out of her garden, but it works just as well to keep Pippa in. She's supposed to come get you if she wants to go beyond the fence, but sometimes she wanders down to the river."

"Does she swim?"

"Yes. But I don't want her going down there alone."

I followed him into the soft shadows of the barn which was clad in wood instead of corrugated metal. Inside, the air felt hot and musty, but for a girl reared around horses, the faint scent of manure was more seductive than the most expensive after-shave. My face fell as my eyes adjusted to the light and recognized that, not only was the interior empty, but from the open layout, it was built to accommodate cattle.

"You don't have any horses?"

"Not anymore," Adam said. "My mother sold the livestock after my father died."

The tack room was empty, just like the rest of the barn, but around the edge, pallets were placed to keep the now-empty grain bins off the floor. I didn't wait for Adam to unload his box, but dropped mine and headed back to my car. On the next trip in, I nabbed him peeking into an open crate of textbooks.

"Psychology of the Gifted Child?" He held up one of the titles.

"Yeah," I said. "That was Professor Dingle's class." I didn't add that I'd taken it as a 'Me-101' class. The last thing he needed to know was that I considered myself to be bloody daft.

At last there was nothing left but my suitcase and the bag with my pillow. Adam grabbed the heavier luggage.

"Come," he called as he headed toward the house. "I'll show you to your room. Once you unpack, we'll get some supper."

My stomach rumbled as I trotted after him, scurrying to keep up with his too-long stride. "What's on the menu?"

"You tell me? I was hoping cooking might be included in the deal?" He shot me an expression that reminded me of a boy who'd just snitched a cookie. "I'm a terrible cook. It will enhance your chances of survival if you never let me serve you a single meal."

I gave him a mock grimace.

"I'm not a terrible cook," I confessed, "but I'm no gourmet."

"Then in that case we'll have Pippa's favorite. Cucumber sandwiches with goat cheese." He gave me a guilty grin. "I suspect she likes them because it's the only meal I don't ruin."

Perhaps two days' worth of razor stubble gave him the roguish look of a jackaroo. He must have realized he'd let his guard down, because he hid his smile behind a cautious, watchful expression.

He led me down a hallway to a sunlit bedroom with a picture window which overlooked the Condamine River. Café lace curtains graced the window, and the entire room smelled of potpourri. The furniture was 1970's modernist, with walnut veneers and boxy lines that had oddly come back into fashion.

"This is nice."

"This was my mother's room," he said. "Pippa used to crawl in with her whenever she had a bad dream, so I thought, maybe, while I'm gone…"

Adam looked away, but not before I noticed the way his eyes glistened, a man who three weeks ago had just buried his mother. And now, he'd been forced to clear her room out for a total stranger.

A lump rose in my throat. This was a far nicer room than even my bedroom as a child. A handmade double wedding ring quilt adorned the bed. I fondled the neatly aligned threads which appeared to have been hand-embroidered.

"I'll fold this over the rocking chair at night so it doesn't get dirty."

Adam nodded.

"That's what my mother always did."

He heaved my suitcase on top of a large, wooden steamer trunk that had been painted dark green to complement the wallpaper. Amongst the pink paper roses, darker squares betrayed where photographs had recently been removed. One picture, however, still remained: a little blonde girl wearing a drover's hat seated upon a small white pony.

"Is this Pippa?" I asked.

"That's my mother," Adam said. "I guess she'd have been around the same age Pippa is now."

I scrutinized the picture. Other than the faded colors, the photograph could have been snapped just outside the door. Adam's mother must have grown up in this house as well?

"Pippa looks like her."

A dark shadow crossed Adam's features, but what he was thinking, I could not guess.

"I'll leave you to unpack," he said.

He shut the door, leaving me to rummage through my things. I fished my pillow out of the bag and folded my hideous crocheted granny-square afghan at the foot of the bed, a trick I'd learned as a teenager to feel at home. I unpacked my wardrobe: blue jeans and khaki slacks, some utilitarian T-shirts and enough button-down shirts to wear a clean one every day. My only concession to fashion was a little black knit sheath. I shook out the wrinkles and hung it next to my everyday clothes.

My hand trembled as I unwrapped my black leather Dubliner horseback riding boots. Even with six years gone by since I'd last ridden Harvey, the scent of horse and saddle soap still clung to them, and the leather gleamed like new. The shaft came up to above my knees, and on the vamp ten laces gave the appearance of tall Victorian granny boots. I sat down in the rocking chair and pulled them on, admiring the way they showed off my ankles. It was too bad the Bristows didn't own any horses. With a regretful sigh, I slid them into the closet.

I paused in front of the mirror to check my appearance. Purple-black circles sat underneath my dark eyes, my clothing looked crumpled, and my skin appeared sallow with a sheen of sweat. In a single day I'd been reduced from future wife of a successful finance prodigy to a girl who lived out of her car.

What did Adam think of me, a girl without a home?

I picked out a clean, white shirt and peeked into the hall. This house, like most homes on the fringes of the outback, had been built for utility. That meant I'd be sharing a bathroom with Pippa and her father.

I laughed when I saw the salmon pink toilet, matching tiles, and pink porcelain tub. I fingered Adam's silver razor balanced on a clear glass shelf above a pink standalone sink. My hand tingled as I pictured my tall, handsome employer forced to stand in the cramped, pink bathroom each morning to shave.

A bottle of bubble bath balanced precariously on the edge of the tub along with a Barbie doll with still-wet hair. The plush charcoal grey towels looked like they'd been brought from somewhere else, perhaps the house where Adam used to live in with his wife?

I rummaged through the closet until I found a faded hand towel with a pink monogrammed 'B' and a matching facecloth. It smelled lightly of laundry detergent, fresh air, and Imperial Leather soap. I turned on the tap and scrubbed my face in the near-scalding water, first hot to mop away the oil, and then cold to chase away the heat. I borrowed Pippa's toothpaste, a sickening bubble gum flavor, and used my finger to brush my teeth.

My own image stared back at me from the chrome-edged medicine cabinet, as plain as an old stock horse that'd been bred for work instead of show. Black tendrils escaped my ponytail and curled around my face, the same unruly hair as my Gitano grandmother. I pinched my cheeks to add some color. I wasn't pretty, but at least I no longer felt so ugly. I tossed my skanky T-shirt back into my room and made my way to the kitchen.

A high, sweet voice chattered to the dog.

"The fairies said Rosie has come to make Daddy not be so sad," Pippa said to Thunderlane. "Mummy doesn't want us anymore, so the Fairy Queen sent Rosie instead."

A lump rose in my throat. After my father moved back to Spain, I had spoken to Harvey the same way Pippa spoke to her dog; although in my case I'd been fourteen years old instead of ten. Harvey had sustained me, my reliable, furry best friend.

Thunderlane whined. I cleared my throat and entered into the Bristow's kitchen. It was a curious train wreck of different time periods and materials. While the grey and red Formica table was vintage 1950's, at some point, probably during the early 1990's, the plywood cabinets had been painted country blue. The stove, however, was 1970's brown, while the refrigerator was a modern white side-by-side.

"Hi Rosie." Pippa smiled up at me as if only moments ago she hadn't been pouring her heart out to the dog. "Guess what Thunderlane just told me?"

"What?"

"He said you and Daddy will get along just fine."

I gave her an indulgent smile. Children of divorced parents often engaged in magical thinking. Once Pippa accepted her parents weren't going to get back together, hopefully she'd stop talking to imaginary friends?

"What do you want for supper, Nipper?"

"Cucumber sandwiches," she said. "With lots of goat cheese and dill."

"Will that be with crusts, or without?"

"Without," Pippa said. "Cut it into triangles, from corner to corner."

I peeled and sliced a cucumber that I found in the fridge while Pippa mashed the goat cheese into the delicate white bread, tearing it up into an unappetizing mess. I let her do it, for how was a child supposed to learn unless you gave them the chance to master the task themselves?

I picked delicate fronds of dill off the vibrant green stalks and crushed a few to release the grassy scent. As I did, Pippa arranged the cucumbers into two green eyes and curved up the rest into a mouth.

"There," she said. "That should make Daddy happy."

I glanced up to see the aforementioned father had just entered the room. He eyed the sandwiches as though I had just prepared a feast.

"Our first meal together," I said.

A shadow crossed Adam's chiseled features. His wife had left him, I suspected, and having me here was not something he felt entirely comfortable with.

"Yes, let's eat," Adam said.

He turned his back and ambled out of the room.